23. Seth
Chapter twenty-three
Seth
I held her face in my hands, beautiful eyes staring into mine. My heart thrummed in my chest. This was it. Her eyelids fluttered closed as I leaned in. Her lips met mine, softer than I could’ve ever imagined. So lush, tasting of honey. Her lips parted, allowing me access. My tongue darted inward, dancing with hers.
“I love you,” I rushed out, breathlessly.
Silence.
I pulled back, searching her depths to find they’d gone pitch black. Her mouth widened, forming a smile that sent chills down my spine.
A figure appeared behind her, circling its arm around her waist and pulling her in close. It formed into the shadow of a man. He bent forward, twisting a strand of her hair between his fingers, inhaling. Then kissed down her neck.
She sighed. “Oh, silly, silly boy. If only I loved you.”
A blade shot through my chest, piercing my heart. The last thing I heard was her laughter, ringing, as a tear trickled down my cheek.
“Why?” I choked, the metallic tang of blood flooded my mouth. My vision blurred until all that remained was her hate-filled pitted eyes.
High-pitched laughter echoed in the darkness. “You abandoned us, Seth Draven. And now, we’ll get our revenge on you.”
I groaned as the sunlight blinded me. I threw my arm over my eyelids, attempting to shield myself from the brightness.
“Why the fuck is it so bright?” I grunted out, rolling over right onto another blanket. Squinting one eye back open, Erin’s spot came into view. Empty.
I shot up and barreled to her room. She wasn’t there either. I slammed open the bathroom door. It was empty too. “Fuck!”
I ran to my bedroom, grabbing sweats and a shirt, tossing them on and ignoring the still disheveled state of the room. I’d been far too focused on making sure we were all guarding Erin after we escaped that bastard Erebus and his lackeys to even care about the appearance. Keeping my people safe was more important than cleaning the place up.
The harrowing voice from my dream dug into me.
“You abandoned us.”
As I went to reach for the door handle to the front door, Derik yelled behind me.
“Bro, where the hell are you rampaging off to?”
“Erin’s gone. I need to find her. They could’ve—”
Libby cut me off, “Calm down there, Seth. She’s fine. Erin left a note saying she was going for a run.”
My shoulder slumped forward in relief. Then stiffened again. “She went running alone?” Panic laced my voice, even I could hear it. Libby thought it was hilarious. “What? Why is that so funny, Lib? She could get hurt. That shit head could be waiting to strike again.”
What if Erebus takes her?
“Seth, sweetie, as much as I’m sure you want to follow her like a lost puppy, she’s okay. We both know Erebus wouldn’t be stupid enough to attack this quickly. And she probably needs to clear her head. Think about how much she’s been through this last week alone. If you’re worried, text her. Or you know, check her location on your phone. There’s this amazing thing called technology.” I shot her a glare. She flashed me an overly bright smile in return.
“Lib, you can be as much of a pain in my ass as Derik sometimes, you know that?” I grumbled as I dragged myself into the kitchen.
Erin could’ve woken me up.
Why didn’t she?
“True, but you adore me for it,” she laughed. “Anyway, Josh messaged you not too long ago saying he’d keep an eye on her today.”
“Of course he will,” I sighed. “I’ll shoot him a text back. Can you toss me my phone?” It’d been sitting on the counter, how it made it there last night, I had no idea. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep listening to Erin animatedly give me a deep dive of her latest read. Something about one of the why-choose romances she loved so much with vampires and werewolves. Her voice sang as I drifted off, a smile plastered on my face. It felt like things were normal again. The haunted look that had plagued her eyes when she had finally awoken yesterday morning had been—for however briefly—replaced with pure book-obsessed Erin.
How often am I going to be able to see that now?
That light? Will it disappear if Erebus gets his claws into her again?
Or is she…is she already disappearing?
I texted Josh.
Hey, thanks for keeping an eye on her.
I stared at my screen, awaiting a response. A few minutes passed, nothing came through. I checked Erin’s location out of curiosity. It had her pinned in Charshire. I let out a breath. They were at Josh’s building. As a businessman with one of the biggest wigs on this side of the country, Josh owned one of the largest buildings in Charshire. Far grander than any structure we had here in our town aside from the college campus.
Wonder what they’re doing there.
The only other person in our group who had ever been inside was Libby. She said she hated the drive so she’d only gone with him once and never told me or Derik what it was like beyond being massive.
My hands were too full to entertain the idea and to be entirely honest, I wasn’t too keen on voluntarily sticking myself with the Prick for an unnecessary amount of time alone. My temper would undoubtedly get the best of me and I worked too hard to keep myself in check to allow that to happen.
I checked my messages once more, then shoved my phone into my pocket.
“Looks like they’re in Charshire.” I sighed. Derik rustled around in the pantry, more than likely clearing out my food stash that Erin and I’d bought last week. “Hey, before your ass eats all my food, wanna toss me a bagel?” A bag of the ‘bread circles’ came barreling across the kitchen at me. I caught it right before they nailed me in the nose.
A little memory popped into my mind.
A few months prior, Erin had been over and crashed on the couch after a long day of classes and then work and I’d been figuring out what to make the next morning. She had said ‘bread circles’ because she forgot the actual name of the cinnamon bagels I kept on hand.
My mouth twitched, a half smile peaked out.
“Is she going to be okay?” Libby asked, shaking me from my thoughts. Libby had the cream cheese out of the fridge and slid it over.
I belted out a laugh. “If anything, you should be asking if Josh’s ass will be okay. The amount of sass in that woman is inspirational.”
Derik nodded in agreement as he emerged from the pantry, arms full of protein bars, coffee, and bread. “You got any jam in the fridge?” Derik asked, the words muffled around the toaster pastry he had dangling from his mouth.
I shook my head at him. “Top shelf, man. Leave some for the rest of us.”
The corners of Libby’s eyes lifted in amusement. “You’re going to need to make another trip to the store, asap. You guys only bought enough food to feed two people, not four.”
I rolled my eyes in response.
“Yeah well, I wasn’t exactly expecting you two to be mooching off me for the foreseeable future. You can buy your own shit, you know. Save me some cash.”
I might have money from mom when mom passed…and also Nicholas, but it's not endless.
Derik huffed. “Why can Snow mooch off you, but it’s a problem if we do it? We’re bros, Seth, come on man.”
Libby snickered. “Oh I know why.” I shot her a glare. She snapped her mouth closed, the edges of her mouth twitching.
Traitor.
Derik eyebrows arched, eyes traveling between Libby and I. “Spill it, Lib. I gots to know.” He begged. I stared her down, praying that she kept it to herself.
Don’t you do it, Lib.
A Cheshire grin spread across her face. “Nah, I think I’ll leave that for you to figure out, Pretty Boy.” Libby batted her lashes at Derik, feigning innocence.
His gaze stuck on Libby and she winked at him. He shook his head, gave up, and chomped down on his toast.
Thank fuck.
If Derik had even an inkling of what Erin meant to me, he’d never let me live it down. Teasing to a whole other level. And with Erin convinced that I’m ‘playing protector,’ I’d rather leave it at that to avoid the embarrassment of potentially being turned down—at the moment.
Libby cranked up the coffee machine, tossing in the grounds Derik had stolen from the pantry. Fresh coffee quickly filled the air, a trace of French toast filtered with it. Libby poured each of us a mug. She offered to add cream and sugar to mine, and I declined, allotting to do it myself. I wasn’t wanting to choke on enough sugar to take down a horse.
Something Libby and Erin have in common…their sugar addiction.
We chatted for a bit after scarfing down breakfast. Libby and Derik offered to dive into hunting down any new information or potential sightings for the humans who disappeared. I opted to stay back, backtrack our notes and findings, hoping maybe we’d missed something. I shot Erin a quick text, then dove in.
I logged onto Erin’s laptop and the first thing to pop on the screen was an excerpt from some fan-fiction site. I stifled a laugh as I read through the page.
His hand grazed my nipple. I shuddered. My knees shaking as he…
I scanned the rest of the page, imagining Erin kicking her feet as she read it, her face flushed; the giggling and little sounds she would make when she got really into her reading material.
She might be embarrassed about it but it’s kinda cute.
I clicked a new tab open and typed in the name of the first woman on the list: Cassandra Eldren. I scrolled through her information; work history, social media, most recent residence. I wasn’t finding anything that stuck out. I pulled up the next woman, Aevalyne Eltroit’s, information. Then the next. Nothing.
Fuck. I’m not getting anything helpful on these people.
There’s no tie between them.
I raked a hand through my hair, frustration seeped into me.
I’m going to go nuts if I stare at this thing any longer.
I’m getting fucking nowhere.
And every fucking day we take to figure this shit out and where Erebus is hiding them…the less likely it is we’ll find them alive and in one piece.
I shut the laptop and went over to the training area. The need to move, throw, or smash something gripped me.
I can’t help anyone if I lose my shit.
They’re all depending on me.
Starting with dumbbells to get my blood pumping and muscles warmed, weight low at hundred and fifteen pounds in each hand, forcing my anger into the movements. I rotated through five drop sets of overhead press, bicep curls, and lateral raises. Once those were completed, I moved to my dead lift pad, lining up the fifty-five-pound Olympic bar. I slid on four forty-five- pound plates on each side for my warm-up. Every set brought me further from the edge. If only a mere inch at a time.
On my next set, I secured two additional plates to each side and continued with drop sets. Increasing the weight after each set and finishing on the final thrust upward with twelve plates on each side. Sweat glistened on my skin in the mirror across from me. My shirt was soaked and glued to my skin. I lifted it up over my head and tossed it to the side before moving to the squat rack.
I set the bar to my height and stepped under the bar. Erin was the last one to use it so it had been nearly a foot too low for my shoulder height—irritation still floated in my veins—I loaded plate after plate onto the bar until it equated to just over twelve hundred pounds. I got into position under the bar and unracked, dipping into my first squat. I kept going, ending at thirty-five repetitions,then added two more plates, beginning the next drop set. Three sets later, my quads, hamstrings, and glutes pulsed. Sweat slicked down my abdomen, my core highlighted. I grabbed a towel off the rack by my cardio equipment and wiped it across my face, drying the sweat that had accumulated.
Hopping on the treadmill, I set the incline to seven and cranked the speed up to an eight-minute mile, going for distance rather than speed. My head cleared around mile six, the frustration finally worked itself out of my system. I ran through the information in my mind, comparing it to what we’d discovered from Erin’s lead about The Key. I stopped, nearly slipping face first onto the treadmill belt. I regained my footing and hit the stop button on the center of the dashboard and ran for my phone, shooting texts off to Libby and Derik, then Josh. Telling them to get their asses back to my place as soon as possible.